


Terms and Conditions

by glorious_spoon



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Breaking Up & Making Up, Episode: s03ep17 Heavenly Fire, M/M, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 13:46:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18411866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/pseuds/glorious_spoon
Summary: Magnus Bane gets his heart broken, gets his magic back, sets Catarina's living room on fire, and eventually figures a few things out.





	Terms and Conditions

**Author's Note:**

> This is based purely on speculation about the teaser for 3x18.

From the end of the dark hallway, Magnus can hear Madzie’s piping voice asking something, Catarina’s soft reply, all too indistinct for him to make out the words. He gulps air, forces himself to straighten. Swipes at his cheeks. If Madzie gets up, she can’t see him like this. She’s a child. She doesn’t need--this, any of this, the sucking vortex that is Magnus, pulling everything and everyone he loves down with him.

When Catarina comes back down the hallway, though, she’s alone. Magnus lets himself slump back onto the couch, closing his eyes. They feel sore and swollen, the remnants of his makeup gritty, and he flinches when Catarina presses cool, careful fingers to his eyelids, a soft flicker of magic soothing the ache away.

“Please go away,” he mumbles.

“No,” Catarina says calmly, sitting down next to him. He opens his eyes in time to see her summon a pair of steaming mugs that smell like chamomile and set them on the coffee table. They’re lumpy, homely and misshapen, like a child’s art project or something you’d pick up at a tourist trap. The one nearest Magnus has alien cats on it. It’s something that would have made him smile once upon a time, and his lips twitch a little before running out of momentum.

He’s so damn tired. He wishes, more than anything, that he could summon a real drink--but, well, if he could, they wouldn’t be in this fucking situation, would they?

“Cat—”

“ _Magnus._ ” Her voice is calm, as steady as the tide. His only universal constant. “I’m not leaving you. Deal with it.”

“He did.” Magnus curls around himself like he’s wounded, gut-shot. Stunned with it, still. Alec’s unhappy face, his hands loose at his sides.

_“I can’t keep doing this, Magnus. Maybe it’s better if you just go.”_

So much for effort.

“He’s an idiot and an asshole and I’d snap his neck like a twig if I thought it would make you feel better,” Catarina says, still in that same calm, gentle tone. The surety of her now, pressed against him on the couch, the warm ancient thrum of her magic.

He almost manages to laugh at that. “Please don’t.”

She sighs softly, settles a hand on his shoulder. “I won’t. Only because you don’t want me to.”

She wants to say more, he can tell. She’s angry, under that layer of practiced calm; furious, actually, in a way that his lovely, even-tempered Catarina rarely is. It’s a betrayal for her, too, he supposes. They have both of them severely misjudged Alexander. Or perhaps, just misjudged how much permanence and devotion anyone could expect of a twenty-three-year old nephilim once that first sweet taste of love turned bitter. It was unfair of Magnus to pin that kind of hope on him, and he knew it, and he did it anyway. He has no one but himself to blame for how it all turned out.

Catarina doesn’t say anything else, and he’s grateful for it. They sit together on the couch with untouched mugs of tea growing cold, the city growing quiet around them, and neither of them speaks another word.

*

He has no memory of dozing off, but he wakes suddenly in darkness, sitting bolt upright on the couch before he’s even fully conscious, the blanket Catarina must have tucked around him slipping off of his shoulders. Adrenaline sings in his veins like he’s been falling, and when he breathes in sharply there’s the smell of scorched metal and brimstone in the air.

It’s like a wind blew in from Edom, that howling darkness opening up in the quiet calm of Catarina’s neat little house. And Madzie is right down the hall, and Catarina for all her power has always been a healer, not a warrior, and Magnus is on his feet with no awareness of moving, hands shaping a defensive spell on instinct before he remembers that he has no magic left to power it now.

He opens his mouth to shout a warning-- _get Madzie and go--_ and then like water bursting a floodwall he feels _power_ roar through him, screaming, bursting through his fingertips and welling out of his skin, breaking through the boundaries of the spell in a sudden blaze of light. It’s like a thunderclap, the afterimage of an explosion, and then Magnus staggers, gasping, rattled.

An awful, familiar chuckle echoes softly from everywhere and nowhere, and then there’s silence. No brimstone, no terrible gaping darkness. Just Magnus standing in the middle of the living room, which is--on fire, actually.

A door slams, and there are sudden footsteps. He hears Catarina curse, hears her snap, “ _Madzie, get back_ ,” and then a cool wash of power floods the room, stifling the flames.

Magnus doesn’t move. He doesn’t think he could move if he tried.

In the echoing silence that follows, Catarina moves carefully into the room, her bare feet soft on the scorched carpet.

“Magnus?” she says, very carefully. “Your hands.”

He lifts them slowly to his face. Blue fire dances over his fingertips, twines in and through his skin, into his veins. He can feel it sinking into all of the parts of him that were parched and cracking in its absence, the well of magic inside him that had been dry a moment ago full to brimming. It isn’t the unfitting poisoned thing that Lorenzo poured into him; this is his own proper magic, and his body sings with it.

He takes a breath, then lets it out. He’s shaking, he realizes.

“Magnus?” she says again.

“He.” His voice cracks. Too full of--he doesn’t even know. Relief, fear, the echoing crawling horror that Asmodeus’s presence always leaves him with. Something. “He gave it back. All of it.”

“Your magic?” Catarina whispers, like she can’t see it flickering on his skin, can’t feel it expanding against the wards of her house. He can _feel_ them now. “Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know, I don’t—” He pauses. Madzie is peering around the corner in her blue pajamas, a ragged-looking stuffed bear tucked under her arm and a wary expression on her face. With an effort, Magnus makes himself steady. Soften. “Hey, sweetpea. Sorry if I woke you up.”

“You set the living room on fire,” she says in a small voice.

“I did. I’m sorry. We can fix it.” _He_ can fix it, he thinks, suddenly giddy, and waves a hand, feels magic flow through his fingertips, unmaking the soot and the smoke damage, banishing the melted slag of the carpet and replacing it in an instant with a deep, soft, oriental rug. After a moment, he turns it bright pink, and Madzie laughs. “Better?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry I woke you up.”

“It’s okay, Magnus.” She darts across the room and wraps her arms around his legs, and he presses a shaking hand to the crown of her head, feeling the wellspring of magic inside her respond to his own.

How can he have lived without this? It was like losing a sense, losing color, losing some vital part of himself; he feels _alive_ for the first time in weeks.

“Okay,” Catarina says finally. She’s still staring at Magnus, but her voice is soft and calm. “I know this is a lot of excitement, but Madzie, you have school in the morning. Let’s get you back to bed.”

*

It takes fifteen minutes for her to get Madzie settled again, and by the time she comes back out again Magnus still hasn’t managed to make himself sit down. He’s pacing barefoot on the new carpet, changing the color of his clothing with a snap of his fingers. Blue. Then deep forest green. Then black threaded with silver. Then—

“Magnus,” Catarina says quietly, pausing in the doorway. “We need to talk.”

“I didn’t summon him,” Magnus says immediately. “I wouldn’t do that. Not without asking you. Not with _Madzie_ here.”

“No, I know you didn’t, I just…” she pauses, twisting her hands together. He knows the expression on her face. It’s the one where she’s steeling herself to say something she knows he’s going to hate.

“What?” he asks.

“I think you should talk to Alec.”

The giddy, happy bubble inside him collapses abruptly. _Alec._ Alec who kicked him out of the only home--hated though it was--that he had left. Alec who swore that there was nothing that could ever make him leave and then crushed Magnus’s heart barely a week later because it was all _just too fucking much—_

He collapses on the couch. “No.”

“I know you don’t like it.”

“I don’t like it and I’m not going to do it. He made it very clear that he’s done with me. I owe him nothing.”

“I think you owe him a conversation about this,” Catarina says, perching on the arm of the couch. “If nothing else.”

Magnus laughs, harsh and without humor. Magic sparks from his fingertips, and it’s a comfort but it does nothing for his broken heart. “Right. Where is this coming from, Cat? Three hours ago you were ready to break his neck.”

“Three hours ago, he’d abandoned you without your magic. Of course I would have killed him for that.”

“And now I have it back; so what? It doesn’t change what he did.”

“I think it does,” she says slowly. “Magnus--when I came to get you outside the Institute—”

“After he kicked me out, I remember vividly,” he interjects.

“You wouldn’t have called me,” she continues like he hasn’t spoken. “I know you. You’re too fucking proud for that. You wouldn’t have called me. You wouldn’t have called anyone.”

He doesn’t speak. She’s right about that. If Catarina hadn’t been there—

Well. The Hudson River is deep and cold, and he’s found himself on that particular brink before, with less reason than he had this afternoon. That’s probably another part of why Catarina was ready to murder Alec earlier, but it certainly doesn’t explain why she’s changed her mind.

“Didn’t you wonder how I knew to be there?”

“I…” Magnus shakes his head. “No. Actually, no. I didn’t wonder. I’m sorry.”

“You had a lot on your mind,” she says gently, and takes his hand between both of hers, her cool gentle magic soothing against his senses. “I knew to come because Alec called me.”

“He _what?_ ”

“He called me,” she repeats, and every word is slow and measured and as painful as a knife to the heart. “Twenty minutes before you left the Institute. He said you would need me and I had better be there.”

“So he was planning it,” Magnus says bitterly. “How kind of him to try to—”

“Magnus,” she interrupts. “Why would Asmodeus give you your magic back? What possible motivation could he have? What’s the one thing he wants more than he wants your raw power?”

“He wants _me_ ,” Magnus says impatiently. “But I would never go to him. He knows that.”

“Not unless you were all alone. Desperate.” Her fingers curl around his. “Heartbroken.”

Magnus stares at her, and it’s like looking at an optical illusion: a sudden shift of perspective that changes the entire picture.

“Oh,” he says finally, blankly.

“Yeah,” Catarina says. “ _Oh._ ”

*

It’s just past dawn in New York when he rips open a portal to the front step of the Institute, perfectly prepared to storm the gates if that’s what it takes. If it comes down to it he still has the keys to the building that Alec had made for him and never bothered repossessing during the most awful and baffling breakup Magnus has experienced in four hundred years of living--but as it turns out, he doesn’t have to do that. Alec is jogging down the steps when Magnus steps out of the unstable vortex of his portal onto the pavement below, dressed in his combat gear, bow slung over his shoulder, face pale and set in a way that Magnus hasn’t seen in months.

When he sees Magnus, he stops as suddenly as if he just ran into an invisible wall. His hands lift for a moment as if he’s about to reach for him, then drop. He swallows visibly.

“Magnus,” he says. “Hi.”

Until this very moment, Magnus really wasn’t sure. But Alec is staring at him like Lucifer at the gates of Paradise, and Magnus knows what heartbreak looks like on his face. Even--maybe especially--the self-inflicted variety. Magic sparks irritably at his fingertips, and even now it’s a fizzing lovely comfort to feel. To feel like _himself_ , even if it is a wounded, furious version of himself. Alec gave him that. Magnus wants to kiss him. Or possibly break his nose.

“I ought to turn you into a frog,” he says instead.

Alec pauses, squints at him like that wasn’t even remotely what he was expecting to hear. “Can you actually do that?”

Magnus folds his arms and doesn’t bother to rein the flickering threads of magic curling over his body. Blinks hard, and his eyes are golden and inhuman, his Mark on display right here in the middle of a Manhattan sidewalk, twenty yards away from the Institute and the dozens of shadowhunters within. “You tell me, Alexander.”

“I…” Alec shifts, grips his bow briefly, a compulsive, self-comforting kind of gesture. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. But it looks like you have your magic back, so--”

“You’re an appalling liar,” Magnus interrupts. “I’m actually embarrassed that I fell for it. What were the terms of the deal?”

Alec’s spine goes stiff, his face tense. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Can you speak to me at all? I guess you must be able to, since we’re both still here. I know what a stickler for the rules you can be.” He steps a few paces closer and Alec watches him with wide, wary eyes, a prey animal in the sights of a predator, and doesn’t move. “Can you touch me?”

“Magnus,” Alec rasps. His hand flexes, long fingers splaying, but he doesn’t reach out.

Magnus tilts his head. “Can I touch you?”

Alec shakes his head, but he doesn’t try to step away when Magnus reaches out, fits his palm against the curve of his cheek, the sharp hinge of his jaw, the jolting convulsive movement of his throat as he swallows.

“So it’s not that,” Magnus murmurs. He’s distracted, actually. Less angry than he should be. Mesmerized by the flutter of Alec’s eyelashes, the way his mouth drops open just a little, the slight shift of his head as he stops himself from turning into Magnus’s touch. Very quietly, he says, “Can I kiss you?”

“Magnus,” Alec whispers again, but he doesn’t pull back when Magnus closes the rest of the distance between them and kisses the taste of his own name from Alec’s lips.

For an instant, Alec seems frozen. It’s just an instant, though, before his hands are coming up to cup Magnus’s face, huge and warm and _perfect_ , and he groans into a kiss that’s suddenly open-mouthed, bruising, desperate. It takes every ounce of self control Magnus has not to just rip open a portal to Alec’s bedroom right now, but he manages, eventually, to pull back. To push Alec back far enough that he can see his face. He’s breathing hard; his eyes are closed, and there’s moisture caught in his lashes.

Magnus settles his hands on his shoulders, keeping him close, and says, very calmly, “What were the terms of the deal, Alexander? What did my father want from you?”

“He said I had to break your heart.” The words come out in a quick, unhappy tumble; Alec doesn’t open his eyes. “I had to break your heart and I had to make you believe it, and he said he would know if you didn’t.”

“That sounds like him,” Magnus says thoughtfully. “Well, for the record, you succeeded. Obviously.”

“Magnus, I’m so sor—”

“Hush.” He settles a finger against Alec’s lips, halting their movement. Alec opens wet eyes to look at him, and Magnus adds, “I’m still very angry with you, just so you know.”

“I know.”

“You had no right to make a decision like that without consulting me.”

“I know. I’m so sorry.”

“My father is a fool if he thinks I have any intention of giving you up.”

Alec starts to open his mouth, then stops. “What?”

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” Magnus says. “Although I am expecting at least two weeks of abject groveling. Starting now.”

“You can’t--we can’t—” Alec looks flabbergasted. “I’m sorry, okay, Magnus, I’m _sorry_ , but it was the price of getting your magic back, and I’m not going to—”

“The price was to break my heart.”

Alec flinches like he’s been slapped. “Yes. And—”

“You already did that. Nothing in the deal says that it has to stay broken, does it?”

“No,” Alec says, staring at him. There’s something like hope dawning in his eyes. Magnus wants to kiss him, but he resists. For the moment. “But if he finds out…”

“Oh, he’ll be furious,” Magnus says, with a lightness he doesn’t entirely feel. Furious is an understatement. “His own fault, really. But he can’t do anything about it. If he could just steal my magic away whenever he liked, he never would have bargained for it in the first place.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s not that simple,” Alec says slowly. “And I don’t know how you could possibly still want me after everything I said to you yesterday.”

“Admittedly,” Magnus says, “that was hurtful. And I really am still angry at you. But I understand why you did it, and why you thought—” he breaks off, shakes his head, then says, more sincerely, “You don’t have to take all of this onto yourself, you know.”

“Of course I do,” Alec says, something baffled in his face. “I love you. Of _course_ I do.”

“I love you too,” Magnus tells him, and watches the tension drain out of his face at that. “Which is why in the future we will handle this kind of issue _together._ Agreed?”

“I,” Alec starts, and then he breathes out a laugh, reaches for Magnus, pulls him into a tight hug. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he says into Magnus’s hair. “And if you’ll still have me…”

Magnus tucks his face into the curve of Alec’s throat, breathes in the familiar smell of him, and feels the tension that he’s been carrying for the past hours--days-- _weeks,_ really, finally start to unwind. “I’m not going anywhere.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [Tumblr](http://glorious-spoon.tumblr.com/) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/glorious_spoon)


End file.
